Insomnia
by coldcoffeestains
Summary: "But this is going on for weeks now and she starts to worry. It's taking a toll on her. She can't concentrate, pretty much feels like death on legs most of the time. She's so tired, but sleep won't come. Not a lot, not for many hours at a time." Set a few weeks after 'Sucker Punch' 2x13.


**A/N:** Wrote this at three am while I couldn't sleep last night - again. Thankfully I fell asleep right after. Also, this includes minor spoilers for _Heat Wave_.

* * *

 **Insomnia**

" _The night is the hardest time to be alive and four am knows all my secrets."_

 _\- Poppy Z. Brite_

She throws off the blanket and rolls onto her back, stretches out her spine, tries to ease the increasing pain in her lower back. She curls back into herself then, back to her side and hugs the pillow to her chest, tries to breathe evenly.

It's been going on for weeks now. She knew that it would come, she sort of knew. She knew, after she shot Coonan, that she wouldn't be able to sleep for a while. She's been suffering from insomnia before. She hadn't been sleeping properly for the first few years after her mother died. There were a few fine weeks but mostly she's been worrying too much. Worrying about her father, worrying about college, worrying about becoming a cop, worrying about her mothers case. Only giving in to sleep when exhaustion took the best of her.

She's been pretty much okay since therapy and trying to leave everything behind. Some cases, some situations, some memories still leave her sleepless. For a few nights, sometimes longer.

But this is going on for weeks now and she starts to worry. It's taking a toll on her. She can't concentrate, pretty much feels like death on legs most of the time. She's so tired, but sleep won't come. Not a lot, not for many hours at a time.

It's going to get better at some point, she knows it will, hopes it will. She knows what triggers it. Has still all those tips memorized her therapist gave her all those years ago.

1) Make your bedroom an comfort zone, make it a place you like going to rest.

2) Exercise regularly and drink a lot of water.

3) Less caffeine. (Right, that is not working.)

4) Write down the things that go through your mind and hinder you from sleeping.

5) Progressive muscle relaxation.

6) Sprinkle lavender on your bedclothes. ( _Do you have a new shampoo or did you always smell like lavender detective?_ )

7) Keep regular hours. (And that is also not possible.)

She does all of it – tries to at least. And she is actually okay. She can handle the case, can handle re opening it. Feels more sure of it than ever before, she's stronger now, more experienced. Not alone in this. She's okay and something close to almost being optimistic that at some point she might be able to solve the case that defines so large parts of her life.

Still - sleep won't come. And people start to notice. Castle starts to notice.  
Of course he does, he spends his days staring at her and the bags under her eyes are not that easy to conceal.

He makes jokes about her having someone new when others are asounr and she's obviously too tired for ten am again and _who is that poor guy you're not letting get any sleep, Beckett_. And then, when there's no one around, he looks at her, concern in his eyes, the piercing blue burning into her, right through her skin into her body and she can't hide. Not from him, she can't never hide from him.

She knows he wants to ask, he sometimes even opens his mouth, starts with _hey_ or _listen_ and then decides otherwise. He might be watching her but she notices things too. He's been more careful around her since the shooting, since she shot her mothers killer, he sometimes even respects her privacy. He brings her more coffee too, even though she's not so sure that's helping with the not sleeping part - pretty sure it's contra productive if her therapist had been right. But it's the one thing that gets her through the day. He sometimes invites her for dinner with his family and she can see right through him then when she refuses, each time again. She starts to realize that this nice side of him is really likable.  
 _  
_ _Call, if you need anything,_ he said. _  
_  
Right like she'd do that.

She rolls onto her stomach and pulls the blanket up over her shoulders, a shiver running down her spine, letting goose bumps rise on her arms and legs. Her head is itchy, her skin is itchy. It's like a thousand needles piercing her body over and over again. She pulls the blankets down again with a frustrated gruff, it's hot. She's sweating and her ears are ringing and her tongue is dry, sticking to her gums.

She sits up to take a gulp of water, inhales the liquid, savors the cool feeling of it running down her throat before she pulls her knees to her body, rests her head atop of them.

Sometimes she feels herself falling, she's floating and she thinks _now, now I'm falling asleep_ and then something shakes her and she rushes awake and the calm is gone.

She settles back onto the mattress, too warm, so she scoots over to the other side, the un-slept side and the coolness underneath her body is deliberating. Turning the blanked to have the colder side, the one without desperate, exhaustion caused sweat and sleeplessness clinging to it on top of her she feels like she could almost fall asleep.

Wriggling her body a little she hopes the movements get her tired. But she is tired, she just can't sleep.

Her phone beeps next to her and she almost hopes she gets called in for a body. At least that would end this for tonight. It's no call though, it's a text message and who would write her at three minutes after two am. Well, there actually is just one person.

 _My mother always told me that as long as I'm still and close my eyes it doesn't matter if I'm asleep or not, the body doesn't know the difference._

She's not sure why, maybe exhaustion is limiting her brain work but she takes the phone and presses call before she can even think about it.

"Hello Detective Beckett," he answers before the first ring is over, the smirk evident in his voice and she debates to just hang up on him. But he knows now that she's awake, knows for sure that she's not sleeping.

"I'm pretty sure she just said that to shut you up," she growls instead and he laughs on the other side and why is he even awake?

"That's what I figured. Maybe just a few years too late after I let this run though my head like a mantra whenever I couldn't sleep." She almost chuckles at him but settles for a smile he can't see or hear instead.

"Well, did it help?"

"No, not really. And if it did I'm convinced it was just psychological or something."

"Yeah."

They're quite, they both are and for him it's something new because he doesn't really do stillness that well. She finds it now comforting and maybe that's adding up to the list of things that won't make her sleep.

"You okay?" He asks after what feels like minutes of silence. She nods into the darkness before she answers.

"Yes, I'm fine," she says and then thinks better of it. They've been doing it more lately, this honesty and talking about personal things thing. "I just can't seem to sleep lately, no matter what I do."

"Oh," is all he says, like he didn't know before.

"It's fine, I have that once in a while. It's just been going on for longer than usual and it keeps messing with me a little." When did she start to let her guards down around him?

"When did it start?" He asks and she doesn't answer, just bites her lip and he knows somehow, he always does.

"Oh," he says again and she huffs out a chuckling breath, more like yawn really.

"I'm sorry," he says but this time she can't help laughing.

"'S not your fault 'm not sleeping," even though he might be a part of it. She knows her voice is slurring right now and he probably takes note of it, like he always does. She wonders if she'll find similarities in his next book.

"But if I hadn't–," he stars and she shuts him off immediately.

"Shhh, Castle, just shut up. We've talked about this."

He does shut up and that also confuses her. Next to the fact that it's almost two thirty in the morning and she's in bed, talking to Richard Castle on the phone.

"Can I at least help somehow?"–

"Why are you even awake?"–

They speak at the same time and a second of a somewhat awkward silence hangs above them before he answers.

"Writing, had some good ideas and then I wanted to know if my muse is still up."

"Castle!"

"Sorry, please don't break my legs, I kinda like them." She smiles a little.

"Let's see how good you can behave tomorrow, huh?"

He laughs. And then he asks again if he can help. She shakes her head.

"What do you wanna do, tell me a good night story?"

"Not the things I've had in mind detective, but if you insist." She knows he's smiling this cocky grin, his innuendo lingering in the air. Driving her crazy like always. She doesn't mind so much.

"You're really pushing it tonight."

"Not the only thing I could-"

"Stop! Just stop or I really consider the leg breaking thing." He stops and that's unlike him.

She cuddles a little deeper into the mattress, puts the phone on speaker beside her head because it's uncomfortable pressing it to her ear, it makes her wrist hurt. He's shuffling on the other side, almost like he's looking for something and then a triumphant aha goes through the line and reaches her ear and then it's quiet again.

"It was always the same for her when she arrived to meet the body. After she unbuckled her seat belt,-"

"Wait, wait," she says as she catches up a minute to late what he's doing, her mind starting to fill with blissful blankness. He waits. "Are you reading _Heat Wave_ to me?"

"Yeah, goodnight story," he says matter of factly and she doesn't know if this is kinda creepy or adorable, which tells her that her mind is already too far gone.

He keeps reading and she's not sure how late it is, she loses track of time for the first time in a while and it's been long since her bed felt comfortable beneath her, the warmth not suffocating.

She's pretty sure he finished the first chapter already but she's not quite listening to the story, more to the deep and soothing rumble in his voice and it should probably scare her. At any other time of the day it would, at any other hour she wouldn't allow him to read her his own book about her while she was in bed, his voice close to her heart. It isn't any other day though, or even any other hour or any other minute. And right now she couldn't really care less because for she first time in weeks she's falling asleep.


End file.
